


Anthem

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Supernatural AU - Freeform, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:35:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The <em>Supernatural</em> AU where Emma is a hunter and Killian used to be an angel. Yeah, I don’t even know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anthem

**Author's Note:**

> I think this should technically be a fusion, but by now the SPN canon re: angel, demons and all that is so mainstream, it hardly matters. It's also really messy, since I remember writing it when I was very sick and very high on all kinds of meds.  
> Anyway. Title from [Leonard Cohen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ma5tF6TJpA).

> _there is a crack in everything  
>  _ _that's how the light gets in  
>  _
> 
>  

Emma died, and went to hell.

It’s shouldn’t have been much of a shocker; after all, she’d always known she’d end up there.

( _Girls who tell lies go to hell_ , Ms. Davis had said to her once in first grade, the time Emma had finally gathered the courage to tell someone, _anyone_ , just how mean Charles got when he drank. But her foster father was an upstanding member of the community and Emma just an orphan girl, and there hadn’t been much to be done.)

( _Good girls go to heaven_. _You want to go to heaven, don’t you?_ Sister Margaret had told her in sixth grade – that pious, kind soul who wouldn’t believe a bad word of anyone, not even that Michael Travis _had_ shoved her, and that was the only reason why Emma had punched him where the principal could see.)

( _Sluts like you, they burn in hell_. That had hurt the most; it hadn’t been Emma’s fault that Mr. Hardin was a dirty _pig_ , and that stupid cow of his wife should’ve known better than blame sixteen-year-old girls for her husband’s faults. That had been the last straw; she’d run away and never come back, and good riddance to them all.)

She’d stopped believing then, in good deeds and guardian angels and anything at all; but she’d never doubted hell was real, not even for a moment – because bad things happened to good people, and that had to be the worst thing of them all.

And then she’d died.

All in all, it had been worth it. She’d done it for Henry after all, did the right thing and gave the kid the _best chance_ she’d denied him back when he’d been born, when she’d done the selfish thing and decided to keep him, to bring him into a life that was nothing but heartache and pain.

(Emma died and went to hell and on the third month she rose again, waking up in a shallow grave with dust in her lungs and what looked like a handprint burned on the skin around her wrist, where her tattoo had been.)

Emma died and went to hell and on the third month she rose again, except that it had felt like so much longer – thirty years, or close enough. _Twenty-eight_ , part of her mind couldn’t help but remind her, and it all felt so unreal, that she of all people got to _come back to life_ of all things; orphan Emma Swan who’d never been special, or loved, never been anyone’s first choice.

But she was there, hot sand under her feet and Henry only one phone call away – if she ever managed to persuade David not to kill her on sight anyway – and if life was good for once, well, Emma had no intention to complain.

Until the angel came along.

His name was Graham, and it didn’t sound nearly as angelic as Emma would have expected. The angel himself only scoffed at that, making sure to tell Emma that he was using a name he thought it might _fit better into the human world_ , all while shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking somewhat like an awkward tenth grader at prom. He was _hot_ , Emma decided, looking like he could be a model – or some actor playing a lumberjack, with that hair and scruff – and that was definitely something she’d never expect she would think of an _angel_ , especially since she’d never believed they actually existed until Graham had turned up.

“Do you do this often?” she asked him the second time he appeared from thin air on the passenger seat of her car, almost giving her a heart attack. “Rescue damned soul, and so on.”

Next to her Graham put on an incredibly serious face, which wasn’t much different from his normal face to begin with, shaking his head slowly. “This is my first time,” he began, and Emma was clearly thirteen because she couldn’t help but giggle. He just ignored her, and went on. “It has been done before, or so I heard, but the results weren’t…. good.”

Whatever _that_ meant.

They almost made it to Maine before he disappeared again, and it was a serious bummer, because Emma had _so_ wanted to introduce him to Mary Margaret – if there was someone who would appreciate meeting an angel of the Lord, it would be her kind-hearted friend.

David, for his part, was more suspicious. “And he didn’t say anything else?” he asked, frowning.

“Nope,” Emma confirmed, chewing on her potato salad. “Just that ‘they’ need my help with something, and I’ll know it when it’s time.” She took another long bite – dinner at the Nolans’ was always more than good – and it was a while before she spoke again. “That’s really not very angelic of them, isn’t it? I saved your ass from the burning pit, but that was only because I need something from you.”

She added the last part in a whisper, because Henry _was_ in the house after all, even if sleeping, and the kid really had no need to know where exactly his mother had been these past few months; and David threw her another worried look.

“But do you think they could…” he paused, rubbing at his nose with one hand. “I mean, they wouldn’t send you _back there_ , right?”

The fork fell on her plate with a resounding clash, and her hands found the edges of her seat, tightening, until Emma was sure the tips of her finger must be completely white.

“Of course not,” she said, voice sounding almost as fake as her smile felt, “David, those are _angels_. They’re… they’re the good guys, right?”

(Except not really, not always.)

(Emma found out _that_ soon enough, within days of meeting Ariel – Ariel who’d left the heavens for Earth, Ariel who’d disobeyed and been punished, and who loved so, _so_ much.)

(And she’d thought they were _supposed_ to be the good guys.)

Graham didn’t show up for a while after that – as he should, if he had any sense – and life got almost boring, to Emma’s great delight. She took on only a couple new cases, old-fashioned _normal_ cases, tracking down bail skippers and not demons, took Henry out for ice-cream and to the movies, even went dress shopping with Mary Margaret – and generally bashed in the utter _glory_ of simply not being dead.

That was about the time Killian Jones came swaggering into town in all his leather-clad, motorcycle-riding glory, and managed to turn Emma’s entire world upside down with a series of well-placed comments – the first one being, _can I buy you a drink?_

Emma said yes, of course. Why shouldn’t she? He was just plain gorgeous, with an all too familiar love-and-leave-‘em attitude that spoke of easy goodbyes and no complications, and Emma had been all about enjoying life lately. So she said yes, making sure to drop the occasional _Christo_ into the conversation just to check the waters – after Walsh, she was _never_ doing the same mistake again – and before she knew it, she was talking more than she had in forever, as Alice came over with shot after shot of tequila. He just listened, intently, drinking every word as if it was the most interesting story he’d ever heard in his life – and later, Emma would remember thinking how there was a certain kind of freedom in being completely honest with people you’d never see again.

Oh, if only she’d known.

(She woke up the next morning, and she never quite realized that her journal wasn’t in the same place she’d left it – until it was again, and Emma never noticed.)

She woke up the next day in her bedroom, head pounding as her phone beeped. It was only her alarm – there were no next texts from unknown numbers, no _Jones_ saved among her contacts. That was fine with her; Emma shrugged and went back to sleep and that was it – until the day Jones showed up on the aftermath of a particularly nasty shapeshifter attack somewhere in upstate New York.

 _Literally_ the aftermath. The burying-the-bodies part of the job, complete with shovel and a conveniently desert patch of forest; and if she hadn’t been so damn busy cursing under her breath, she’d definitely have heard him before he scared the _shit_ out of her.

“Whatever they’re paying you,” he started, and Emma all but jumped, “it’s definitely not enough.”

“This is –” _not what it looks like_ , she started to say, before she registered exactly whom she was talking to. It wasn’t a cop, or a random passerby, but someone she’d last seen in Storybrooke, someone who’d _just happened_ to show up when she was digging a grave – and Emma Swan didn’t believe in coincidences.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked instead – not particularly witty, maybe, but it worked just fine. One hand went to her belt, where the gun was, but Jones didn’t even react, merely raising an eyebrow.

“An underpaid job, looks like.”

And now _this_ was weird. “What?”

“Well, you know,” he made an airy gesture with one hand, and Emma tightened her grip on the gun’s grip. “You don’t look like you actually kill monsters out of the kindness of your heart.”

He was right – Emma didn’t do that, not anymore – but she could recognize a distraction when she saw one. “Who _are_ you?” she asked, pointing the gun at him – and Jones didn’t even blink.

He just raised that eyebrow, _again_.

“Would you believe me if I say, _I’m an angel of the Lord_?” he asked. “Or did someone else use that line on you already?”

“They did,” Emma confirmed, lowering the gun and bringing her left hand to her jeans pocket, eyes trailed on Jones’s, trying to keep him distracted. “But you know one thing about me?” she said. “I’ve got a superpower.”

“Oh?” he said, politely, the effect just slightly ruined by his grin. “Do tell.”

Emma’s fingers curled around her flask, unscrewing the cork. “I can tell when someone is lying,” she smiled up at him, and saw Jones’s eyes go wide for a second. “And you are.”

“Well, _former_ angel,” he amended, shrugging, and –

 _Truth_.

 – and that was all the distraction Emma needed. She took a step back, throwing the flask’s content towards the man in front of her, and Jones –

He winced as the holy water came into contact with his skin, fizzling, but he didn’t burn or cry out like a demon would. He _glared_ at her instead, looking for all the world like a petulant child. “That bloody _hurt._ ”

(“So,” he added after a while. “How about we have a chat?”)

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://www.qvcksilver.tumblr.com/).


End file.
